On Thu, February 17, 2005 12:30 pm, Mark Williamson said:
Hi Felix,
Many of the responses there anger me because they almost go so far as
to say that Cantonese is worthless as a language.
What about the guy who said something like "You will hardly get 50
characters in without wondering why Cantonese has so much 'junks'"?
Or the people who said "Cantonese should only be used for informal
things." without giving a valid reason?
[snipped]
That is what I have said: I expect fierce opposition from Chinese, even
native Cantonese speakers. It is not easy to unlearn. ^_^ Compared to
those responses, people here are quite enlightened and respecting.
However, also look at the brighter side. If there was not such a debate,
I may not have done so much research and found this group of enthusiasts:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/
There are some excellent articles on why we should encourage Cantonese
speakers to write their own speeches:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/writemyhand.htm
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/article/poorcantonese.htm
The first one is written in Cantonese, the second in standard Chinese
(Mandarin).
They have even compiled a list of Cantonese specific words, with
references, and they stated on the web site to release the following
two pages to the public domain:
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary1.htm
http://www.cantonese.org.cn/ungoo/master/dictionary2.htm
Those can be a good starting point for the orthography of the potential
Cantonese Wikipedia.
Felix Wan